George Weigel
Strange as it may seem, I've been vaguely worried about the beatification on May 1 of a man with whom I was in close conversation for over a decade and to the writing of whose biography I dedicated 15 years of my own life.
My worries don't have to do with allegations of a "rushed" beatification process; the process has been a thorough one, and the official judgment is the same as the judgment of the people of the Church. I'm also unconcerned about the fretting of ultra-traditionalists for whom John Paul II was a failure because he didn't restore the French monarchy, impose the Tridentine Mass on the entire Church, and issue thundering anathemas against theologians and wayward politicians. No, my worries have to do with our losing touch with the qualities of the man. When the Church puts the title "Blessed" or "Saint" on someone, the person so honored often drifts away into a realm of the unapproachably good. We lose the sense that the saints are people just-like-us, who, by the grace of God, lived lives of heroic virtue: a truth of the faith of which John Paul II never ceased to remind us.
Read more here: http://www.insidecatholic.com/feature/remembering-pope-john-paul-ii.html
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